Monique Jaques (b. 1985, USA) is a photojournalist based in Istanbul. She has spent the past three years focused on documenting issues in the Middle East, Afghanistan and India. After graduating from New York University’s Photography and Imaging program she traveled extensively through the region and landed in Turkey. Since then she has photographed the revolution in Egypt, conflict in Libya, and in Afghanistan. In 2010 she was featured in the Ian Parry Scholarship show and received an Honorable Mention for the 2008 New York Photo Awards. More recently, she was accepted to the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2011. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, and CNN among others. Monique is represented by Corbis Images.

About the Photograph:

“Raise your head high, you are a free Egyptian!” This woman and many others called out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. For the first time in their lives women in Egypt were free to shout, chant, and sing in protests against President Hosni Mubarak. I went to Egypt to see how the women were contributing to an event that seemed to only feature men. Many women came to Tahrir Square independently, but most were bussed in from around Cairo where they were penned in by a ring of men holding hands to protect them. In this safe zone they were able exercise the freedoms of speech they had never had, and in a unique moment Egyptian women gathered together with heads held high and began not only a political revolution.”

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Brent Clark (b.1981, United States) is a photographer born and based in North Carolina. Since earning a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004, he has worked on long term documentary projects depicting various aspects of American culture while also freelancing for magazines and agencies. His work has been recognized by the National Press Photographer’s Association, The International Photography Awards, the Venice International Photography Contest, Jen Bekman Gallery, Travel Photographer of the Year, Burn Magazine, and the New York Times Lens Blog. His clients include TIME, Newsweek, Popular Mechanics, Popular Photography, AARP Bulletin, and Go Magazine.

About the Photograph:

“While visiting my mother in Carolina Beach, North Carolina I heard about a small Civil War reenactment at Fort Fisher just a few miles down the road. For those who don’t know, Fort Fisher kept North Carolina’s port of Wilmington protected and open to blockade-runners supplying necessary goods to Confederate armies inland. My niece, nephew and I arrived at the reenactment in time to see the firing of several canons. It was probably the loudest thing I’ve ever heard, and definitely startled me even though I had been warned. I have since learned that hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing in the ears) are extremely common among veterans of the Civil War and pretty much every other war including the current ones. I made several photos including this one, which I took after the canons had fired. I ended up liking it best because the canon smoke has spread out and filled the frame creating a surreal atmosphere. Next time I’ll be wearing ear plugs, but hopefully any minor hearing loss I suffered was worth it.”

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Thomas Haugersveen (b.1980, Norway) took up photography during his studies at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia. He graduated with honors in 2005. He works for a variety of magazines and have produced stories on topics such as; the Tamil guerrillas on Sri Lanka, the homeless in Russia, Coal mining in China, Refugees in Georgia, the AIDS epidemic in Africa and the effects of agent orange in Vietnam. He has won several national and international awards for his work divides his time between editorial and commercial assignments. Thomas is represented by Agence VU and is currently based in Oslo.

About the Photograph:

“This picture was taken in Bucharest, Romania in 2010. After joining the European Union in 2007, food and gas prices more than doubled. At the same time Romania was hit hard by the financial crisis in addition to wages being sharply reduced. During the summer of 2010 a number of more or less peaceful demonstrations took place against the government. Towards the end of one of them, these men showed up, dressed in Dracula outfits. Bram Strokers novel, Dracula is said to be based on the Romanian count Vlad III Dracula from Transylvania. He was known to place his enemies in spears. Following his example, the demonstrators placed figures depicting politicians, on spears.”

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Glenna Gordon (b.1981, United States) is a freelance documentary photographer who splits her time between West Africa and New York. In addition to her own projects, she also covers news, does work for NGOs, and trains journalists and photographers in Africa. Glenna’s photos have been published in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, among others. Her work from Sierra Leone was accepted into the 2011 Lagos Photo Festival in Nigeria and the PowerHouse gallery in New York. Other projects have been shown in Washington DC as part of Fotoweek DC, where she received second place in the photojournalism and social documentary category. Glenna has also been a grant recipient of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting for a project on justice in post-war Liberia.

About the Photograph:

‘”The image was taken at the Ducor Hotel in Monrovia, Liberia. It was once a four star hotel owned by the Inter Continental chain, but during Liberia’s civil war fell into disrepair and was inhabited by thousands of squatters fleeing from rural areas and urban fighting. They were later cleared out in 2010 when the Libyans won a bid to rehabilitate the hotel. Renovation began, but stopped when violence broke out in Libya. It was clearly once a beautiful spot, and still had its own kind of beauty. I went there often while I lived in Liberia, ostensibly to take pictures, but also for this beautiful, sweeping view of Monrovia and because I kind of fell in love with the building. It’s one of those buildings that is significant to the history of a place, its own role changing with the times. Liberia’s future is unclear – there was a relatively peaceful election recently and the president is well liked abroad, but animosities and grievances haven’t been forgotten or forgiven. The Ducor’s future is uncertain as well and will continue to be tied up with Liberia’s growth and progress, or lack thereof.”

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Daniel Etter (b. 1980, Germany) is a graduate of the German School of Journalism. He holds a Master’s degree in political science and a university diploma in journalism. After his studies he moved to India to start his freelance career as a photographer and feature writer. His photography has appeared in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek and Stern among others. Daniel received the Award of Excellence of the Alexia Foundation, has been nominated for the UNICEF Picture of the Year Award and won an Award of Excellence at POYI in 2012. He is currently based in Istanbul.

About the Photograph:

“This photo was taken after the rebels took over Tripoli and Gaddafi was still on the run. The city was chaotic. Running water, electricity and food were scarce. Every day skirmishes between the few leftover loyalist and rebels broke out. In an abandoned hospital scores of bodies were piled in rooms. Some apparently executed, some were left behind to die. Yet, joyous over the inevitable ouster of Gaddafi and hopeful of the future, Libyans took to the streets every day to celebrate their freedom. I shot this photo on Martyr Square, formerly known as Green Square, where most demonstrations were held. Libya is quite a conservative country. Even in Tripoli, you normally don’t see a lot of women on the street. This day was different. Thousand of mothers and daughters celebrated their victory. Many of them had lost their brothers, sons or husbands in the revolution. The few men who were there, were cautiously guarding the celebrations from the side. Another thing was different. At the time, celebrations normally meant a lot of shots fired in the air. Young men and guns. On this evening the voices and chants were louder than the guns.”

Mike Kane (b. 1976, USA) is a documentary and editorial photographer based in Seattle. In 2004 Mike received a Journalism MA under Donna DeCesare at the University of Texas, and in 2005 was awarded a two year Hearst Journalism Fellowship which lead to an accomplished career in newspapers. In 2009 he became a freelancer and has since been honored to work with investigative journalism nonprofits, foundations, and publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Mother Jones Magazine. Mike’s ongoing documentary work with gangs has been recognized by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, Blue Earth Alliance, the Center for Documentary Studies, and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

About the Photograph:

This is an early image from “Gangland, USA”, an ongoing project about the proliferation of Latino gangs in rural parts of the United States. For almost two years Creeper was my entrée into the world of gangs in Grant County, Washington. A 20-year old, mid-level gangster with contacts on all tiers of a local Sureño clique, Creeper guided me through his world, a contradictory collision of youth and adulthood, gang life and family ties, rural and urban aesthetics. My purpose has been to document the inner workings of rural gangs and their effects on families and communities, and as such contribute what I can to the public understanding of an under-reported and oft-denied reality: gangs are infiltrating and disrupting rural life in a serious way and are no longer just the problem of large, dense urban areas.

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Claudine Doury (b.1959, France) received the Leica Oscar Barnack award in 1999 and during the same year the second prize at World Press Photo. In 2004, she received the Prix Niepce. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibits in France and Europe, most recently at La Galerie Particulière in Paris. Her first monograph, Peuples de Sibérie, was published in 1999. Since then she has published Artek, un été en Crimée (2004), Loulan Beauty (2007) and Sasha (2011). She has taught workshops in Russia, Latvia, Brazil and France. Claudine’s photographs can be found in public and private collections, including the FNAC (Fond National d’Art Contemporain). She is represented by Camera Obscura Gallery and La Galerie Particulière in Paris and is a member of VU agency.

About the Photograph:

“This picture is part of my series called Sasha. I took it in Burgundy where I was visiting friends with my daughter, taking advantage of holidays to work on my theme. I had been taking pictures of Sasha during a long moment when suddenly Blanche, daughter of my friends, who was watching us, came suddenly into the scenery and without a word just layed on Sasha’s back. She stayed so for quite a while, at the very heart of the game, nested against the elder girl, as if she was feeling in peace this way. The resemblance between Blanche and Sasha at the same age, the pose, all this scene was perfectly depicting the end of childhood, gently flying away. With what appears to me as an angel visitation I had in front of my eyes the incarnation of James Agee’s words – adolescence is a kingdom of fallen or still falling angels, but it is yet a kingdom.”

James Mackay (b.1970 England) is a documentary photographer based in South East Asia and the UK. He studied at Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design in London and has worked extensively, often undercover, in Burma documenting humanitarian and political issues in the military controlled country. His long-term project on Burma’s political prisoners was selected as part of the Open Society Foundation’s ‘Moving Walls 19’ and has recently been published as a book ‘Abhaya – Burma’s Fearlessness’. His work has published in: The New York Times, The Independent, The Guardian, Le Monde, Vogue UK and Vogue Japan as well as by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. He is currently working in Burma as the country goes through historic political change.

About the Photograph:

“This photograph was taken outside the notorious Insein prison in Rangoon early in the morning of Friday 13th January 2012, Wearing t-shirts demanding the release of political prisoners, members (and colleagues of mine) of the once outlawed student organization, ‘Generation Wave’, line up waiting in anticipation for the release of said political prisoners, including more than 14 from their group jailed for their political activities. In a country where for decades most people have lived a life of fear, too afraid to speak out and where thousands have been jailed for their political beliefs, euphoria erupted in Rangoon on that historic day as prominent opposition leaders and political dissidents including the famed ‘88 Generation Students’ were freed from prison under a presidential amnesty.” (more…)

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Lara Ciarabellini (b. 1971, Italy) decided to leave behind her degree in Business Administration and a twelve-year carrier as a business consultant to follow her passion for documentary photography. Since 2010, she has been undertaking personal projects to explore the Balkan region in its effort to resolve and move on from past conflicts. Her on-going work “If chaos awakens the madness”, on the consequences of the Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been short-listed for “The Aftermath Project 2011”. Lara is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.

About the Photograph:

“The picture belongs to the project If Chaos Awakens the Madness, which aims to describe the ‘cold peace’ of daily life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. When the war criminal Ratko Mladic was captured in Serbia, his supporters organized a protest against his arrest since they still consider him a valorous soldier and a defender of the fatherland Serbia. While people were gathering in front of the Parliament in Belgrade and waiting for the speeches, the man stopped me and proudly showed me his son with the t-shirt of Mladic. Then, he forced the child to salute me. An example of one of the many drops of poison, whose schizophrenic effects constantly threaten the future of the country and are part of the endless aftermath of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

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About...

Photographer and photo editor Geoffrey Hiller has created Verve Photo to feature photographs and interviews by the finest contemporary image makers today. Verve Photo is a reminder of the power of the still image. Verve Photo will also point you to new photo agencies, publications, and inspiring multimedia projects.